We are delighted to report that Professor Roumiana Tsenkova was awarded the Council for Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (CNIRS)’s Gerald Birth Award for 2024 in recognition of her exceptional contributions to the development of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), particularly through her pioneering work on non-invasive disease diagnostics and as the founder of Aquaphotomics.

In 2005, Prof. R. Tsenkova proposed for the first time newly identified water absorbance bands and spectral patterns specific to biological and aqueous systems, and she introduced the concept of building a database, the Aquaphotome, to be used for diagnosis, quantification, and functional characterization at the system level. This work led to the discovery of the phenomenon of water acting as a collective mirror of matter and energy.

The award was conferred especially in recognition of Professor Tsenkova and her collaborators’ Aquaphotomics research on elucidating water activity in food.*1 The significance of this research lies in clarifying the correlation between absorbance in the water vapor bands and water activity, demonstrating the definition of water activity, and presenting water spectral patterns as a new dynamic multidimensional biomarker for food preservation.

Read the announcement of the 2024 Gerald S. Birth Award Winner

The award ceremony was held at the International Diffuse Reflectance Conference at the University of Tennessee, USA, on August 1st, 2024, and the awardee presentation took place on July 31st, 2024. On the same day, Professor Tsenkova and Associate Professor Jelena Muncan served as session chairs for the Aquaphotomics session.

International Diffuse Reflectance Conference (IDRC) July 27 – August 2, 2024

The Gerald Birth Award

The Gerald S. Birth Award is a distinguished honor bestowed by the Council for Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (CNIRS) to recognize outstanding innovation in the fields of diffuse reflection or diffuse transmission spectroscopy. Established in memory of Dr. Gerald S. Birth, the founder of the International Diffuse Reflectance Conference (IDRC), this award celebrates significant advancements and contributions to the art and science of Near Infrared (NIR) spectroscopy.

Dr. Birth made notable contributions to the development of instrumentation technologies related to diffuse reflectance, and the award is conferred biennially to researchers whose work exemplifies groundbreaking progress in these areas. Eligible candidates are those conducting research in the visible, NIR, or mid-IR regions of diffuse reflection or transmission spectroscopy.

^*1 Malegori, C., Muncan, J., Mustorgi, E., Tsenkova, R. and Oliveri, P. Analysing the Water Spectral Pattern by Near-Infrared Spectroscopy and Chemometrics as a Dynamic Multidimensional Biomarker in Preservation: Rice Germ Storage Monitoring. Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy (IF 4.4), p.120396, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.saa.2021.120396